I bow to taste the truth of the Tathāgata's words. I bow to taste the truth of the Tathāgata's words. I thought maybe today we could just sit all day, but then I thought we don't have much time, so I thought it would be better to get started looking at the practice that I wanted to emphasize this year,

[01:14]

actually, of course, every year. But particularly this year, I'd like to be more specific to emphasize the practice of samadhi. I think some of you know that, from the early days, Buddhist practice was sometimes, or Buddhist training, actually, was presented sometimes as having the aspect of looking at, originally, precepts of personal conduct. And then, called the Vinaya, which means all the precepts of personal conduct, plus the teachings about those practices of personal conduct, of personal purification. And then, the next practice is the practice of samadhi,

[02:18]

or training in awareness, and then the third is training in wisdom. It's an early presentation of Buddhism of those three trainings. Samadhi is, in a sense, one of those trainings, but also samadhi, as an awareness, embraces all three, of course. We only have three weeks for this particular session of training and study. And I hope to have us all get started in trying to understand what samadhi is, and continue the study, at least for the rest of the year, in various venues.

[03:20]

But hopefully then, on and on beyond, understanding more and more what samadhi is, and realizing it. And in particular, also, I want to bring to your attention and discuss with you what we call the Mahayana samadhis, samadhis of the Mahayana, the samadhis of the Bodhisattva. There are also samadhis, other kinds of samadhis, besides samadhis of the Bodhisattvas, there are samadhis of the early Buddhism, that are, excuse me for saying so right off,

[04:22]

that they're more dualistic. They have to do more dualistic awareness. Can you hear me okay? No? Those two people who are shaking their heads, there's two seats right up here in the front. What's the matter? You don't want to move? The word samadhi is used in lots of different ways, and I have myself, over the years, found it a little bit unnerving to not be sure what people mean by samadhi. And maybe during this time,

[05:23]

we can bring out some new different meanings, and you will maybe run into them in your discussions, and we can discuss how they can be kind of made in peace with each other, made peace with each other. In our new service, most days, we'll probably be reciting a text called the, does it say self-receiving and self-employing samadhi now, on the top? So we have this text, which has the title Self-Receiving and Self-Employing Samadhi. The awareness, it has to do with the awareness of how the self is received, and how that received self is employed.

[06:26]

And this samadhi, in the tradition of Japanese Soto Zen, of the teacher, Dogen Zenji, that teacher's teaching of what we call Zazen, has the criterion, or the standard, of this samadhi. So this morning I was, and last night too, I was looking out upon the assembly and seeing people sitting, everybody was sitting. And that sitting, when that sitting is sitting in the midst of this samadhi, it is the sitting of the Bodhisattva, it is the sitting of the Buddha. Of course, this is what you'll hear

[07:31]

in this text that you'll recite today in your service. That the authentic way of entering enlightenment, unsurpassed enlightenment, is to, it says sit upright, but I would just say be upright, in the middle of this samadhi. And then it goes on to describe what it's like in this samadhi. And basically what this samadhi is, is an awareness of the way things are for Buddha. And the way things are for Buddha is that everything is assisting everything else in liberating everything, assisting everything else, to liberate, assisting everything else. The samadhi is the awareness of how

[08:37]

everybody helping you, and everybody means everybody in the room, means everybody on the planet, means all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, how they're helping you, and how that help that comes to you from all beings and gives you life and gives you a self, how then that self then resonates back that help, which then helps them, and then it resonates back and forth beyond space and time. And so that awareness is the awareness that the Buddhas sit in the middle of. And that samadhi, the samadhi which the teacher Dogen said is kind of the main thing he wants to make sure

[09:40]

that we're always sitting in the middle of when we practice together. And that makes our practice the same as enlightenment. There are other kinds of practices which probably some of you know about. For example, there's the practice which is the awareness of how people aren't helping you. Quite a few people are into that practice. They don't necessarily like it, but it just comes so easily that they're like, oh, that person's not helping me. This person's not promoting me. They're not helping me, they're not promoting my life. And also this not helping is resonating back off me back to them. I don't want to help them either. So this is another kind of samadhi. It's not as stable and serene as the former,

[10:41]

but it is a kind of awareness. And some people are well established in such a samadhi. And then there's sort of in between those kind of nasty anti-Buddhist samadhis. There's also just a samadhi where you're aware perhaps of... you could be aware simply of your breathing. And you could see it from the point of view of I am now going to practice being aware of my breath. And I'm somewhat successful. Or I'm not so successful. And now I'm going to try again. And I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do that. And I'm going to practice this wholesome thing, and I'm going to practice that wholesome thing. This is another kind of samadhi. Which this samadhi, I would say, is fairly wholesome and beneficial to yourself and to others. But it's not the bodhisattva samadhi. It's already getting warm up in this area.

[11:45]

Are you warm? Could you open some windows? So this is one example of a Mahayana or a bodhisattva samadhi. It's self-receiving and self-implying. Or receiving and giving kind of awareness. Awareness of how receiving and giving is going on. Receiving, giving, receiving, giving. This is one of the bodhisattva samadhis that we'll be looking at. That's very important in this particular tradition. Repeat the samadhi? It's called the samadhi of where it's the same as before, I just said it differently. Samadhi of receiving and giving. Receiving and giving, receiving and giving.

[12:46]

The samadhi of that resonance of receiving help and giving help. And receiving help and giving the help which you received. And then getting back the help in relationship to the help you gave. This kind of samadhi is one of the ones that we'll be looking at repeatedly. And I would recommend if you... We have a study hall that will probably happen occasionally. And you have some other time when you might have time to study a text or something. And I recommend that you memorize that particular text which we'll be chanting at noon service. It's two pages long and kind of a lot to memorize, but I would recommend it. If you memorize it, well, it would just be wonderful that you have that text in you which is telling you about the way it is to be in the samadhi. You can consider this outrageous situation

[13:51]

of this inconceivably thorough mutual assistance that's going on all the time. So that's one important Mahayana samadhi for us in Zen school. I just mentioned a few others just in case we never have another class. Another important samadhi is the Surangama samadhi which we studied in August Sesshin here last year. And the way to translate that would be you can translate it as the heroic stride samadhi or the heroic march or the heroic progress samadhi. The awareness of the heroic stride, the heroic stride of the Bodhisattva. It's an awareness, it's a scripture

[14:54]

which is describing the heroic stride of the Bodhisattva, describing how the Bodhisattva marches through the world of all beings in this heroic fashion. It describes the fearless love of the Bodhisattva. And we have a couple of copies of that in the library which will be on reserve. And so if you want to read that text I would suggest that those of you who want to read it maybe get together unless you have or find other people that have copies to borrow because there's a number of copies at Green Village and get together and recite it together. And you can also of course read it other times. That's a practice you might do is get together and recite it in small groups.

[15:56]

That's another very important, historically speaking, one of the early emergences of a whole scripture about a Bodhisattva Samadhi. Another Bodhisattva Samadhi is the Ocean Seal Samadhi. That's not referring to the mammal. But the sort of the oceanic emblem or the oceanic mudra Samadhi. Another important Samadhi. I believe it's a Samadhi that Samantabhadra is in as he as he acts out his life in the Avatamsaka Sutra. And there's also the Jewel Mirror Samadhi which is the awareness the state of concentration which was transmitted by

[17:00]

yin-yang to tung-shan. So, very important part of our lineage is the transmission of this Jewel Mirror Samadhi which is also a chant sometimes in morning service. There are some other Samadhis particularly mentioned. Another important Samadhi is what's called the One Practice Samadhi. This is a Samadhi which is which was brought forth and emphasized by the fourth ancestor of Zen. So, that also, there's some readings on that teacher's teaching of the One Practice Samadhi. So, in one sentence, it's the awareness of one practice or it's the awareness of the one practice

[18:02]

that everybody's doing all the time. So, we have various different practices that we're doing but there's also one practice that we're doing where there's a kind of a uniform activity of all beings. So, the One Practice Samadhi is like being aware of this uniform quality of all life. That's all that's coming to my mind right now but basically there's infinite numbers, infinite possibilities for these Samadhis. The key factor in the Mahayana Samadhis is that they are to be aware of and to be, the Samadhis to be aware of

[19:05]

and immersed in the teaching of non-duality. The teaching of non-duality, I'm not saying that it wasn't present in Buddha's early teachings because I think it's implied but somehow it was in this thing called the Mahayana, this movement called the Mahayana that the fuller exposition of non-duality was brought forth. It's easier for people to understand

[20:13]

I'm over here, you're over there. I do my practice, you have a good practice, I don't have such a good practice. There's the Buddhist practicing over here, the non-Buddhist, I'm practicing over there. This way of seeing the world is easy for people because people naturally are neurologically equipped to think dualistically. And so in some sense Buddha when Buddha first taught Buddha just went along with people's dualistic thinking so they could understand what he was talking about. I mean so they could so he could say something that they would understand. Sometimes people say that when he was first asked to talk he just talked the way he was thinking and they didn't understand so then he changed to dualistic mode and they understood better. How's the air now?

[21:17]

I'm sort of like I'm a little higher so I pick the heat up faster. Um So another way to think of these of all samadhis is that they are all samadhis yeah all samadhis is they offer the opportunity to to bring a teaching into being. So you may hear various teachings dualistic teaching or non-dualistic teachings you may hear teachings but samadhi is a way to make the teaching come into being. So in terms of dualistic teachings

[22:32]

there's lots of dualistic teachings which are beneficial for example the teaching that you know if you do harmful things you're going to be unhappy and if you do kind things you're going to be happy that's a teaching and you might be happy to hear that teaching but and then you might have some discussion about how does that teaching work and understand it but still you might not be practicing it because you haven't yet entered into the samadhi of that teaching there's still that teaching over there and you're life is separate from it so samadhi could be a way that you settle into and join that teaching and let that teaching join you so even a kind of dualistic expression like that that's helpful can be brought into being through samadhi and the non-dual teachings the same and then when we when we become if we could become non-duality

[23:34]

which is really what we already are but fully realize that then if we wish to help beings we would be fearless we wouldn't be afraid of hanging out with the most troubled most difficult being because we would be the non-duality of that being and ourself and we would be the non-duality of blissful liberation and miserable bondage so again the early buddhist teaching looks like these people were trying to get blissful stable total freedom for themselves and and of course anybody else they would like to help too I think early buddhists definitely wanted other people

[24:37]

to be liberated too but the method was get liberated and then help others get liberated but also the method was liberation is different from bondage that was that was the way it looked it sounded like that's what Buddha was teaching there's liberation which is like really great, freedom is actually possible and it is just as good or better than you ever thought of and misery actually you haven't even yet you don't even yet know how bad misery is and actually you have to practice for quite a while before you can dare to see how horrible bondage is but I want to help you do that and that's Mahayana doesn't say bondage is not miserable, it is miserable same as early buddhists the bodhisattva knows how bad suffering can be and how great nirvana can be the bodhisattva understands they're not separate

[25:37]

they're not dual and bodhisattva uses liberation doesn't go to liberation and stay there the bodhisattva realizes liberation to bring intimately together with bondage to realize that non-duality that's why they can have this heroic stride they're not afraid to go into bondage and misery because they're never apart from non-duality and they're not afraid of nirvana either because they're never apart from non-duality so they won't camp out in nirvana because they can't because they have the samadhi to keep moving through all states uh

[26:52]

I'll say this probably many times but if you have heard about the early teachings of buddhism and then seen the later teachings called the Mahayana the later teachings are different and put more emphasis on emptiness and non-duality the early teachings of buddhism are about selflessness they're about selflessness they're about a lack of inherent existence the later teachings are about selflessness too but the early teachings again because whatever reason maybe people weren't ready for the early teachings were more emphasizing selflessness of the person and didn't mention so much

[27:57]

about the selflessness of all phenomena the later teachings emphasize again both the selflessness of the person and the selflessness of all phenomena and in India the Indian ancestors of the buddhist tradition did a you know a wonderful job of putting out the teaching of emptiness and the teaching of non-duality but they didn't leave us much instruction about how to bring these teachings of non-duality into our life one of the few two sutras that most do this in a way are two that are on the reading list which you can have

[28:58]

do you have a reading list here Bert? so Bert has a reading list so under the Indian section of the reading list there are two sutras that most show us how to bring the teaching of non-duality into our lives are the Shurangama Samadhi Sutra and the Samdhi Nirmachana Sutra and these sutras are sutras which not too many people know about in the west and part of the reason why we don't know too much about them is because they've just been recently translated so the early this phase of the transmission of Mahayana to the west has not had these sutras available in the native languages but now we do now you can see descriptions of samadhis which you maybe haven't seen so much before

[29:58]

however when Buddhism moved to China the Chinese did lots more to discover samadhis to create samadhis to help people bring the teaching of non-duality into their lives so that's one of the great contributions of Chinese Buddhism is to make all these meditation practices which help us realize all these samadhis which help us bring this ultimate teaching into being and so during this three weeks you may want to look at the Indian texts and some of the Chinese texts and Zen is also part of this whole Chinese movement but not the only part of Chinese Buddhism that made up that dreamed up, that created samadhis to help bring the teaching of emptiness into our life I

[31:11]

was talking to someone during the Urohatsu session here in Green Village and she was talking to me about the topic that was being discussed during the session which was the poem Merging of Difference and Equality and there was a part of the poem which she particularly liked or liked, I don't know if she liked it anymore but it was the part where it says right in light there is darkness but don't see it as darkness right in darkness there is light but don't try to get it as light she liked that part very much and she said but I was wondering how I can understand it, she said my tendency usually to try to understand something is to try to analyze it and

[32:14]

so she said so how should I go about understanding that teaching and also maybe other teachings in that particular text and I put in my mind something which again I will tell you about is a process of understanding that is laid out in actually one of the scriptures that we mentioned just a moment ago it is laid out in the process by which you come to learn something in the Buddhist learning process but I didn't say that to her, I said something else which was a story which I think some of you have heard already and it is a story about, it is from a book I think called

[33:15]

kindness or reverence towards all life and in this book this man who is the author of this book spent time with Native Americans I believe in either New Mexico or Arizona Navajo and one of the things about these people I guess about the young men of the Navajo nation that he particularly appreciated was the way they could ride ponies bareback so I thought of when she asked how can I understand this Chinese text this Chinese Buddha text, I thought of that example after skipping over the traditional Buddhist answer about how you understand something the traditional Buddhist answer is a little more elaborate and this is more succinct in a way so anyway he

[34:20]

was watching these riders riding these ponies and he was watching them sitting next to the chief of the group who he is a friend with and he asked the chief how did these people learn how to ride these ponies and they were sitting next to each other I think and the chiefs didn't answer for two hours I believe so they just sat there silent for two hours after asking that question how did these bodhisattvas practice this samadhi these samadhis, how can they practice these samadhis so that they like can heroically be of service to all beings it's just incredible

[35:21]

what they supposedly are able to do for people and other animals and plants, how can they practice these samadhis so then the person you asked sits there for two hours and then the chief said that's a good question and that was that and I think a year or or a couple years later they were together again he and the chief and the chief said that I can say something about your favorite question and he said first of all I think he said this first of all you'll never be able to ride these ponies you have to grow up with them you have to play

[36:21]

with them, you have to groom you have to clean up their excrement and then after you grew up with them there comes a time when you can start riding and maybe I can't really say, I can't describe how to do this to you for you, but maybe I can show you with my hands so he took his hands and put them together joined the palms and then interlaced the fingers and then the two index fingers came up together and joined and then the joined index fingers made a circle and that's how we learn how to ride the ponies and

[37:22]

thinking of that answer I think that's also how you learn Buddhism so I see in that presentation that you come to you come to meet the material you come to meet the object of study it can be text it can be your body, it can be breath it can be another person you come to meet whatever it is that you study and you settle into that meeting and then actually, the next step is you analyze you analyze, you break apart and examine the different parts and become even more intimate through that examination and now you're now the unexamined and the examined relationship are both very close and from that

[38:25]

emerges the enactment of whatever the teaching is and it's no longer you or the teaching that's being expressed, it's the non-duality of you and the teaching that's being expressed. Originally you and the teaching, even if the teaching was non-duality, were somewhat separate, and you have to use that separation, actually to get together and you have to sort of in some ways work on that separation and become intimate with all the aspects of that separation in order to realize the non-duality so then the non-duality expresses itself as the Bodhisattva Samadhi or riding ponies without saddle or bridle so in the riding of the ponies it isn't exactly the young man is riding the pony but the pony is carrying the young man

[39:26]

they have this rapport such that you don't need, one side doesn't need to be controlling the other side which is very intimate and I also heard another description, a western description of how to ride horses and I didn't read the whole book but I read a little bit and it said an adult horse already knows how to do everything it knows how to do, basically a healthy adult horse can walk can stand can trot can canter can gallop any other strides that they do than this? they can already do that stuff when you meet them you don't teach them to gallop

[40:28]

you don't teach them to canter what you do is you learn how to tell them which of the things they already know how to do you would like them to do and you basically tell them with your butt, your legs and your hands I guess you can talk too but it's mostly through your hands and your legs and your butt according to this book so it's like you have to be able to convey that clear message if you give unclear messages through your hands and your legs and your butt about what you want the horse doesn't the horse just does the best it can with unclear messages and if you give clear messages if you've given some other messages that the horse doesn't like the horse might not want to do what you ask but I guess if you've given certain messages to the horse that the horse likes which maybe don't have so much to do with what the horse should do but just basically something about the way you feel about the horse

[41:31]

I don't really know what the horses like to hear from us but I've heard that one of the main things they like is they like the message of I'm just sitting on you so that's the message of you're actually sitting on them and they kind of realize that that's pretty much it you're there with them this is not a you're not better, you're not worse, you're just sitting the horse and that's one of the main messages you send the horse and then these other messages about well let's walk now they may be willing to go along with that with you once you've made the basic message of you know we're just here together and I think this kind of feeling of great respect for the horse, I think horses like to be respected and loved I think they do, I don't know once they get that message, if you ask them to do these other things in an unclear way they still can't do the other things because they don't know what you're asking for you still have to learn how to tell them what you want

[42:33]

even if they would be happy to do whatever you want and I think there's a possibility even not that way of looking at the horse riding which can approach this other way so it isn't so much you controlling the horse but it's more like you sitting the horse and you telling the horse what you like and the horse does what you like because they want to do what you like maybe not out of fear but out of cooperation and one more thing before what time do we usually stop this class? 10.30 one more thing I thought I might mention is as a basic thing to do while learning about these samadhis and again, learning about these samadhis is partly learning the method for entering the samadhi but also part of learning

[43:34]

about these samadhis is learning about the teaching which these samadhis are intended to realize, so we'll both be learning about the teachings of non-duality and also the yogic exercises for bringing non-duality into your body and mind so you may not yet have enough material even to bring anything into realization so you can start working and preparing yourself for entering into the samadhi before you even hear much about what the samadhi is like and the basic way to sort of prepare and get ready to enter the samadhi is to the basic way

[44:40]

of getting ready to enter the samadhi is body and mind dropping off the way of entering the samadhi is dropping off body and mind or the dropping off body and mind is the way of entering the samadhi so this this dropping off body and mind I don't want to say the thing for you to do now is to drop off body and mind but rather the way to get ready to enter the samadhi is body and mind dropping away so this body and mind dropping away fortunately is available to you now there is a body dropping away right now you don't have to go find one or you don't have to make the body you've got drop away because again

[45:43]

you making the body drop away would be holding your mind holding your view of you dropping your body giving up giving up of that view and giving up the body this is the way to enter the samadhi and again that's you know a verbal expression which is coming out of the mouth now and you're hearing and so how can that also be let in met analyzed and joined and again there's many ways to encourage this intimacy with the teaching of body and mind dropping off body and mind

[46:48]

dropping off or dropping off body and mind is not the whole of the bodhisattva samadhi it's more like the way of entering it we're not dropping off so this dropping off body and mind is available to us exhale by exhale and the recreation of body and mind is available to us inhale by inhale so every exhale you can join this body and mind dropping off and every inhale you can notice didn't lose that much still got a body and mind no problem so I guess maybe I could join this one being dropped off too so as a basic practice of entering the samadhi we practice

[47:48]

just not grasping anything not grasping physically not grasping mentally and so moment by moment you're given physical data and mental data plenty of that's happening in this practice period before this practice period after this practice period you've got lots of stuff being given to you now can you just not grasp any of it and not grasping whatever comes is body and mind dropping away and again I say that already there is a not grasping of these physical and mental experiences there already is a non grasping of them and that already non grasping of them is entering the samadhi already your job is to join this program of the samadhi

[48:50]

which is already going on by being willing to not grasp not grasp physical and mental data but not grasp the idea oh that's a really great person there oh this person is like low quality there's somebody there, there's somebody who's really helping this practice period they're like making it go on really well this person's resisting those are some thoughts that might occur to somebody or my body hurts and my body doesn't hurt or my leg doesn't know what to do my leg does know what to do so these are information that comes to us the way to enter the samadhi is not to grasp any of those things grasping

[49:54]

them is more or less more or less misery sometimes it's like a little bit of misery and sometimes it's tremendously terrible what we do when we grasp these things for example when we grasp the thought, these people are not helping this program these people are interfering with the good we have such thoughts I'm not saying those thoughts are wrong or right, I'm just saying that to enter the samadhi we have to not grasp those thoughts so you can start practicing that way it's very simple you can start that right now that will help you I think get ready for the samadhi will also help you understand all the teachings about the samadhis will also help you actually find that there is

[50:54]

some interest in studying these samadhis there's a body and mind which want to study these samadhis that body and mind will appear someday if you let go of the body and mind that's not so interested in studying these samadhis and also if you have a body and mind which is interested in studying the samadhis and is not grasping that that also promotes interest in studying the samadhis Because, in fact, that will be the world you will enter. So maybe that's enough for starters. So there's a reading list, and I'm not encouraging you to read all the books on the list, of course, because there's too many books for almost any of us to read, even if we can get them all. But they're there if you'd like to look at some of them during study hall. I'll refer to them sometimes, and I'm studying some of these texts with people in small groups

[51:54]

now, and I will continue during the practice period, and if I have time and some other people want to study these texts during the practice period, we can let Mayim know, and we can make some other small study groups, and I guess that's enough for starters. Do you have any comments? Jill? There's a question, not a comment. Okay. A question is your comment. I'm not sure I know when...

[52:30]

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